Mobile Marketing on Facebook

Want to grow your business? Embrace mobile marketing and tap in to the legions of smartphone-wielding Facebook fans.

As important as it is to growing your business, an entrepreneur can allocate only so many hours a week to marketing. You need to be strategic about how – and where – you spend that time. And unless you’re simply not paying attention, you know that Facebook is one of the most effective platforms a small business can use to reach a wider audience.

Still, unless you’ve tapped into mobile marketing, you’re missing out on the most active pool of Facebook fans. A study by the Web.com Group shows that of the small businesses who embrace mobile marketing, more than 80 percent have seen an increase in new business as a result.

Pedro Hernandez at Small Business Computing reports on an IDC study of smartphone owners that shows just how popular Facebook is with the mobile crowd. According to the study, Facebook ranks as one of the top-three things people do on a smartphone. Seventy percent of those people surveyed use Facebook, with the average person checking the service 14 times a day.

These results are both surprising and an indication that this group of Facebook aficionados provides a huge growth opportunity for small business owners who are savvy enough to focus their marketing efforts on this demographic.

How can you take advantage of the opportunity? The social media platform offers several mobile marketing tools to help small businesses expand their Facebook reach.

A feature called Nearby offers recommendations based on a person’s Facebook likes, check-ins and tags. Hernandez rightly notes that people tend to rely on recommendations from their friends. Simply keep the information on your Facebook page up-to-date – your business address and hours of operation – to take advantage of this mobile-friendly feature.

Another option to consider, especially if you want to increase foot traffic: Facebook Offers. Three types of virtual coupons – in-store only, in-store and online, and online only. Who doesn’t enjoy a deal, especially when you can redeem the coupon by simply flashing your smartphone?

Facebook’s Promoted Posts turn your posts into ads that then appear in other people’s Facebook news streams. This can help you get your message out in front of more people faster – a handy tactic especially if your Facebook page is new and hasn’t developed any traction yet. Just be sure to follow Facebook’s advertising guidelines.

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5-STAR BUSINESS NETWORKS </a>

It's suprising how many businesses havn't optimised their sites for mobile use! Not just Facebook but mobile browsing too. I would love to see some reliable figures on Facebook marketing for B2B companies.

It's a serious game changer. Social Media is changing the way we are all thinking on marketing. When you think your company might need to jump in, it's time to jump in. It's astounding how many people search google on there mobile phone. When it comes down to it, nothing beats Insurance Live Leads. I think small business have to have many eggs, a well rounded marketing approach.

Facebook is stil a largely untapped resource for merchants, especially local merchants. Sure lot of businesses have Facebook Pages, but few are effective at utilizing Facebook. This is something we are working to change at ShopZooky. Our mobile search app lets local shoppers discover all the nearby Facebook Offers created by local merchants. With everyone carrying a smart phone these days, it is important for merchants to have their Facebook Offers discoverable by local shoppers on their smart phones.

Our ShopZooky app also allows shoppers to share and comment about products and Offers they find with friends and with the local merchant. Finding these local Offers is not easy since Facebook does not provide a geo-search API. So we crawl the web looking for Facebook Offers while also crowdsourcing Facebook Offers found by your friends and neighbors, so when one person discovers a nearby offer from a local merchant, everyone around you can find and or be notified about that Offer.